Government orders subvention of 50% of the insurance bonus for agricultural crops

The government could approve subvention of 50% of insurance bonus for agricultural crops and 60% – of strategic crops, which have great incomes per surface unit, such as fruit growing, viticulture, vegetable growing and sugar beet. Secretary of the Republican Union of Associations of Agricultural Producers UniAgroProtect, Alexandru Slusari, said that the law of July 2004 on insured subvention of producing risks in agriculture stipulated that the state would cover 40% of insurance bonus, and the rest of 60% - by agricultural producers. The modifications were drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry together with UniAgroProtect and shall be discussed and approved during government meeting on Wednesday, 22 March. Alexandru Slusari mentioned that the government should include in the list of crops that the state subventions the insurance bonus the sun flower, corn and tobacco. Last year the subventions for insurance bonus were made for wheat, vineyards, orchards and sugar beet. He also noted that last year there were stipulated 15 million lei of the state budget for partly subvention on behalf of the state of the insurance bonus, compared to 5 million lei last year. In the same time, Slusari underlined that of the allocations of last year there were spent less that half of million lei, one of the reasons that the producer did not insure the crops being the difficult financial situation, their conservation, as the state insured before 100% the risks of agriculture, as well as the disliked practice of ‘93-‘94, when certain insurance companies shirked from compensating the damages resulted of the natural disasters. The insurance bonus is negotiated by every agricultural producer a part with the insurance company, depending on the crop, foreseen expenses, risks for which they are insured, including hail, floods, frosts, storms, slides and droughts, and represent in average 3-5%. In the list of risk there is included as well excessive drought, for which the insurance bonus is the highest and represent about 10%. In Moldova only one company provides services related to insuring risks in agriculture and pays subventions allocated of the public budget.